Election Commission uploaded the data of electoral bonds on its website

Electoral Bonds Case: The Election Commission released all the data of electoral bonds on its website on Thursday (14 March). Two lists of 763 pages have been uploaded on the website. A list contains information about those who bought bonds. The second contains details of bonds received by political parties. The Supreme Court had ordered the Commission to make this data public by March 15.

Earlier, State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman Dinesh Kumar filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Wednesday. It was told that as per the instructions of the Supreme Court on March 11, the available information related to electoral bonds has been given to the Election Commission.

SBI Chairman said-

We have given two files in pen drive to ECI. A file contains the details of those who bought the bonds. It mentions the date and amount of purchase of the bond. The second file contains information about the political parties encashing the bonds. The envelope also contains 2 PDF files. These PDF files are also kept in the pen drive, the password to open them is also given in the envelope.

According to the affidavit of SBI, 22 thousand 217 electoral bonds were purchased from April 1, 2019 to February 15, 2024. Out of these, the money of 22,030 bonds has been encashed by political parties. The parties did not encash 187 bonds within the 15-day validity, the amount of which was transferred to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.

On March 11, the Supreme Court heard the petition of SBI for about 40 minutes in the case related to giving information about electoral bonds. SBI had told the court - We have no problem in giving information related to the bond, but it needs some time. On this, CJI DY Chandrachud asked- What have you done in the 26 days since the last hearing (February 15)?

While giving the verdict, the Constitution bench of 5 judges of the Supreme Court said - SBI should disclose all the information by March 12. The Election Commission should collect all the information and publish it on the website by 5 pm on March 15.

In fact, the Constitution bench of 5 judges of the Supreme Court had banned the sale of electoral bonds on 15 February. Also, SBI was directed to give information about electoral bonds purchased from April 12, 2019 till now, to the Election Commission by March 6.

On March 4, SBI had filed a petition in the Supreme Court and sought time till June 30 to provide its information. Apart from this, the court also heard the petition of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), in which a contempt case was filed against SBI for not providing information till March 6.